"Rome, May 5. 1817.
"By this post, (or next at farthest) I send you in two _other_
covers, the new third Act of 'Manfred.' I have re-written the
greater part, and returned what is not altered in the _proof_ you
sent me. The Abbot is become a good man, and the Spirits are
brought in at the death. You will find I think, some good poetry
in this new act, here and there; and if so, print it, without
sending me farther proofs, _under Mr. Gifford's correction_, if he
will have the goodness to overlook it. Address all answers to
Venice, as usual; I mean to return there in ten days.
"'The Lament of Tasso,' which I sent from Florence, has, I trust,
arrived: I look upon it as a 'these be good rhymes,' as Pope's papa
said to him when he was a boy. For the two--it and the Drama--you
will disburse to me (_via_ Kinnaird) _six_ hundred guineas. You
will perhaps be surprised that I set the same price upon this as
upon the Drama; but, besides that I look upon it as _good_, I won't
take less than three hundred guineas for any thing. The two
together will make you a larger publication than the 'Siege' and
'Parisina;' so you may think yourself let off very easy: that is to
say, if these poems are good for any thing, which I hope and
believe.
"I have been some days in Rome the Wonderful. I am seeing sights,
and have done nothing else, except the new third Act for you. I
have this morning seen a live pope and a dead cardinal: Pius VII.
has been burying Cardinal Bracchi, whose body I saw in state at the
Chiesa Nuova. Rome has delighted me beyond every thing, since
Athens and Constantinople. But I shall not remain long this visit.
Address to Venice.
"Ever, &c.
"P.S. I have got my saddle-horses here, and have ridden, and am
riding, all about the country."
* * * * *
From the foregoing letters to Mr. Murray, we may collect some curious
particulars respecting one of the most original and sublime of the noble
poet's productions, the Drama of Manfred. His failure (and to an extent
of which the reader shall be enabled presently to judge), in the
completion of a design which he had, through two Acts, so magnificently
carried on,--the impatience with which, though conscious of this
failure, he as usual hurried to the press, without deigning to woo, or
wait for, a happier moment of inspiration,--his frank docility in, at
once, surrendering up his third Act to reprobation, without urging one
parental word in its behalf,--the doubt he evidently felt, whether, from
his habit of striking off these creations at a heat, he should be able
to rekindle his imagination on the subject,--and then, lastly, the
complete success with which, when his mind _did_ make the spring, he at
once cleared the whole space by which he before fell short of
perfection,--all these circumstances, connected with the production of
this grand poem, lay open to us features, both of his disposition and
genius, in the highest degree interesting, and such as there is a
pleasure, second only to that of perusing the poem itself, in
contemplating.
As a literary curiosity, and, still more, as a lesson to genius, never
to rest satisfied with imperfection or mediocrity, but to labour on till
even failures are converted into triumphs, I shall here transcribe the
third Act, in its original shape, as first sent to the publisher:--